In chapter 18, the Hassassin thinks about the brotherhood and how they somehow learned of his loathing and skills. They had bestowed on him the ultimate honor. He would be their hands and their voice. Their assassin and their messenger. The one his people knew as Malak alhaq – the Angel of Truth.
In chapter 19, Langdon, Vittoria, and Kohler enter Vetra’s lab. In the center of the room was a series of short pillars that rose from the floor. Each supported a thick, transparent canister about the size of a tennis ball can. They appeared empty. She explains that she and her father were trying to recreate the Big Bang to prove Genesis. They succeeded in creating matter out of nothing. She states that those canisters contain actual specimens – the world’s first specimens of antimatter.
In chapter 20, The Hassassin strides into a darkened tunnel. He thinks about his task and wonders if what awaited him inside would be as easy as Janus had promised. Janus had assured him someone on the inside would make the necessary arrangements.
In chapter 21, Kohler is skeptical and states that even if the vacuum worked, the canisters are made of matter and antimatter cannot be stored inside canisters made out of matter because the antimatter and matter would instantly react. Vittoria explains that the specimen is not touching the canister (what she calls antimatter traps); it is suspended and literally trapped in the center of the canister a safe distance from the sides, top, and bottom. It is possible because the specimen is suspended between two intersecting magnetic fields. Vittoria gets a microscope and aligned it with one of the canisters. Kohler is baffled and asks if she really collected visible amounts of it. She tells Kohler that it’s five thousand nanograms of a liquid plasma containing millions of positrons. He says “Millions? But a few particles is all anyone has ever detected…anywhere.” Kohler looks through the microscope and exclaims, “My God…you really did it.” Langdon looks through the microscope. The object suspended in midair was a shimmering globule of mercurylike liquid tumbling in space. She then explains that the power source for the magnets is in the pillar beneath the canister. The traps are screwed into a docking port that continuously recharges them so the magnets never fail. If the magnetic field fails, the antimatter will fall out of suspension, hit the bottom of the trap, and then they would see annihilation. She explains to Langdon that if antimatter and matter make contact, both are destroyed instantly. Physicists call the process “annihilation.” She reaches for the canister to demonstrate.
In chapter 22, Kohler freaks out and lunges forward, knocking her hands away. He asks if she is insane and says she can’t remove the trap. She assures him that it’s perfectly safe. Every trap has a failsafe – a back-up battery in case it is removed from its recharger. The specimen would remain suspended even if she removed the canister. She explains how the batteries activate automatically when the trap is moved from the recharger. The batteries work for twenty-four hours. She also explains to Langdon that antimatter has some astonishing characteristics which make it quite dangerous. A ten milligram sample – the volume of a grain of sand – is hypothesized to hold as much energy as about two hundred metric tons of conventional rocket fuel. She goes on to say that it is the energy source of tomorrow: a thousand times more powerful than nuclear energy, one hundred percent efficient, no byproducts, no radiation, no pollution, and a few grams could power a major city for a week. Vittoria leads Langdon and Kohler to the far end of the room where she pulls a curtain aside to reveal a window, beyond which is a large room. She says that it’s an annihilation tank. She says that they are going to witness their first antimatter-matter annihilation of a few millionths of a gram, a relatively minuscule specimen. She adds that antimatter releases pure energy, a one hundred percent conversion of mass to photons, so they shouldn’t look directly at the sample. She presses a button to shut off the magnets. Instantly, Langdon is blinded. A shock wave of light radiated in all directions, erupting against the window before him with thunderous force. The light burned bright for a moment and then, after an instant, it rushed back inward, absorbing in on itself, and collapsing into a tiny speck that disappeared to nothing. Langdon squints into the smoldering chamber and sees that the canister on the floor had entirely disappeared, vaporized without a trace.
Even though I’m not a huge physics fan, I was pretty amazed by this. I think it’s cool how Dan Brown incorporates the fact that Vetra is a Catholic priest by showing that he created this antimatter in order to prove genesis, that matter was created from nothing. I decided to write a lot on these few chapters because the novel elaborates to a large extent on this topic. I think that this will be very important to the plot line as I keep reading. Also, the readers still have to keep in mind why Kohler, Langdon, and Vittoria are at Vetra’s lab; they are there because the Hassassin murdered Vetra and cut out his eye to break into his lab and steal something. The readers don’t know quite what he stole yet, but obviously it has something to do with antimatter.
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